Nate Byrnes - Good Brew Hunting: Contract brewing has mutual benefits

Thursday

Mar 27, 2014 at 9:46 AM

Go to any liquor store with a decent beer selection and you'll find enough "bombers" (22-ounce bottles) to start a war. This proliferation of beers is due, at least in part, to the rise of contract brewing, or brewing your beer at someone else's brewery.

Nate Byrnes

Go to any liquor store with a decent beer selection and you'll find enough "bombers" (22-ounce bottles) to start a war. This proliferation of beers is due, at least in part, to the rise of contract brewing, or brewing your beer at someone else's brewery.

This relationship is mutually beneficial — it helps the physical brewery's bottom line while allowing a new brewer to get a foot in the door for a much lower initial cost. By contracting, startups can avoid the often multi-million dollar investment that comes with building a brewery. Lower entry costs means more breweries, which means more selection, which means more hoppy goodness for all.

Thankfully, the quality of the beer certainly doesn't suffer because of this arrangement. Some of my favorite brewers, including Pretty Things, Clown Shoes, Notch, Battle Road, and Peak Organic, do not have a physical brewery. Their brews are made in someone else's house.

To outsiders, contract brewing might seem odd — like Ford making parts at a GM plant — but it works well for everyone. The brewing industry is still largely collaborative, at least at the local level. Most brewers are glad to see new ideas and breweries out there, as it raises the awareness of, and market for, craft beer while expanding the options for beer buyers. Sure, these new brewers also compete for increasingly scarce shelf space and tap handles, but brewers usually see this as the classic "Rising tide lifts all brewers" situation.

Even more surprisingly, quite a few existing breweries will brew at another brewery's location to take advantage of a different system. Buzzards Bay has done or does do quite a bit of contract brewing for other breweries with physical plants, including Offshore, Newport Storm, Cisco, and even Narragansett.

Buzzards Bay's Bill Russell explained that there are three main types of brewers who will brew there: brewers and startups who don't have a brewery and/or don't want to deal with the logistics of bottling (Pretty Things), brewpubs who can't bottle or brew large quantities of beer (Offshore), and large brewers who want to do smaller-volume specialty beers at a smaller brewery (Narragansett).

Explained Russell, "Narragansett has plenty of beers, but (owner) Mark wanted to expand their product line and kept coming up with beautifully made beers "¦ higher alcohol, more artisanal, made in smaller batches. It's small compared to what they do for their regular beers. They come into our brewery and do it with us."

So the next time you reach for a brew by an unfamiliar brewer, raise your glass to the collegial spirit of a brewing industry that would rather collaborate than compete (more on collaboration brews in a future column). That beer may just have come from a different brewery than you'd expect.

The annual NERAX (New England Real Ale exhibition) festival will be held at Aeronaut Brewing Company in Somerville through March 29. Admission is $17, or $15 in advance, and beers run from $2 to $6. "Real ale" is ale that has been cask-conditioned and allowed to naturally ferment. Enthusiasts insist it's far superior and more complex than regular beer.

The eighth annual Great International Spring Beer Festival will be held on April 12 from 1-4:30 and 6:30-10. There will be more than 250 brews available to sample at the Rhode Island Convention Center. Tickets are $44. http://www.beerfestamerica.com/

The third annual Newport Craft Beer Festival will hold two sessions on April 26. It's a great chance to try every R.I. brewery and a bunch of others. Tickets are $45.

The big boy of New England beer festivals, the American Craft Beer Fest, will take place in Boston at the Seaport World Trade Center in three sessions on May 30 and 31. There will be more than 140 brewers there, including quite a few that aren't available here. Tickets are $51.10 after fees, and are well worth it. Mrs. Hunting and I wouldn't miss it and will be at the Saturday afternoon session. http://www.beeradvocate.com/acbf/

All former Good Brew Hunting columns are now available online at www.goodbrewhunting.com. I really appreciate feedback! Hit me with ideas for beers, events, or breweries at www.facebook.com/GoodBrewHunting or via email at goodbrewhunting@gmail.com.

Nate lives in Westport with his wife, two kids, small farm worth of pets, a basement fridge full of local craft beer, and assortment of bottles/kegs/carboys of homebrew at various states of completion.